After losing her mother—her only remaining parent—to a mysterious dark magic that has since awakened within her, Vaasa is certain death looms. Her merciless brother aims to eliminate Vaasa as a threat to his crown. In one last political scheme, he marries her off to Reid of Mireh, a ruthless foreign ruler, in hopes that he can use her death as a rallying cry to finally invade Reid’s nation. All Vaasa has to do is die.
But she is desperate to live. Vaasa enters her new marriage with every intent to escape it, wielding the hard-won political prowess and combat abilities her late father instilled in her. But to her surprise, Reid offers her a help him win the votes to rise in power, and she can walk free. In exchange, he will share his knowledge about the dark magic running through her veins—and help keep it at bay.
This proposal may be too good to refuse, yet Vaasa and Reid’s undeniable attraction threatens to break the rules of their arrangement. As her brother’s lethal machinations take form, everything is at Vaasa must learn to trust her new husband, but how can she, especially when their perfect political marriage begins to feel like the real thing?
In this book, the first of a series, we meet Vaasa Kozar, a brave young woman, daughter of an emperor, whose evil brother sends to a marriage of convenience with a foreigner he wants to do business with for political gains. Vaasa knows there's more to this than what others assume, but after the marriage she flees, hoping to be left in peace to investigate the magical curse that seems to take her into darkness, but she is quickly found by her new husband. However, she is surprised to realize he doesn't intend to hurt her and, instead, helps her. As their relationship improves and her control of her magic too, life seems to become easier, but her brother still has an agenda against her newfound happiness...
I truly had no expectations about this book except, as always, that it would be a good story and that it would provide an entertaining reading. I don't read as much fantasy books nowadays as before, it's true, and the genre doesn't compel me as it did years ago. It also seems this book is labeled as a "romantasy" which, in fact, should appeal, because I have enjoyed fantasy and romance before, and still do. However, perhaps I can say the final effect wasn't one of great success for me, even though the several parts seemed competent and interesting.
The writing was fluid and easy but sometimes there were passages that felt confusing. I struggled to find motivation to keep reading. The elements were fine: a strong but wary heroine, an unknown but dependable hero, third person narration, a slow burn type of relationship, a common enemy to defeat, a need to join forces and magical abilities to be learned. However, the sum of all these things didn't captivate me and the fact I had some tasks in my life to distract me from reading several pages in a row didn't help either.
I think my biggest issue probably comes down to finding myself easily distracted while I had the time to read and that what I was reading was, mostly, a little boring. I failed to connect with the characters, to see their goals as essential and to grasp the urgency of what they had to accomplish. I can't fully explain it, since the same formula worked out for me when I read other similar books, but that it is.
The main characters had potential, of course, and their reasoning to do/say this or that seemed to have enough intention, but I don't think the author presented them in the best way and there wasn't enough chemistry. Vaasa was very self sufficient in some things and she needed to step back and accept help. I don't think this was done in a good sequence for the change to be believable. Reid seems like a good guy but he is described as ruthless.. I'd not choose this characterization for him, so to me he was a little monotone. I feel they weren't given enough scenes together to establish a believable link.
As the plot moves along, it had a lot of political maneuvers between several characters, but most characters felt very one dimensional. Still, I imagined things would lead into a battle of some kind and then the HEA. Well, not really so, for this story ends in a cliffhanger and it seems there is a continuation. I mean, I didn't check that this would be so, but why finish like this, a different end could have achieved a similar purpose. I don't feel interested enough to read the next book, though.
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